Abel Decorators / Painting & Decorating Contractors in Newlands

However, over time all the following things came to light:
- Using our stuff when they were in the house and we were out of town
- Substandard work (not removing all the lichen from the roof before painting over it)
- Most serious: When a… problem arose that was their fault, and initially saying to leave it with him, he ended up doing the opposite and running a mile

The detail…

One thing that came to light after we came back to Wellington and they had been working on an inside room, was that I discovered that someone had got paint on my juggling balls. These were in a different room to the one they were painting, but someone must have found them and been playing with them with wet paint on their hands. I didn’t really mind them having a quick go with the juggling balls, but I was unhappy about them looking around our stuff and getting paint on them as I couldn’t get it off that material, and it did make us wonder what other things they may have done or looked through? I mentioned it to Lindsay and he was suitably shocked and apologised nicely for it. That was the first and last time we communicated about it – I don’t know if there was any follow up from Lindsay to the person/people concerned.

The main problem started a couple of months after they finished Phase 1 of the work. One of the jobs they did for us was to get rid of the lichen on the roof and repaint it. They were meant to clean out the gutters of all the lichen as part of the job. However a couple of months after they had finished and the three stories of scaffolding had been removed, we had a decent amount of rain and we noticed that our gutters were overflowing rather than all the water coming down the downpipe. It would have been a super easy fix if the scaffolding was still there but that was gone by then. Bugger! I raised it with Lindsay in a very friendly and polite way. I never said that he was liable for it or that he had to fix it, but I was keen on getting his advice and help as I did say that it must be the lichen that came off the roof as there are no leaves that get in there as the house is higher than the surrounding trees. We looked out to the roof corner where the blockage was which was only a couple of metres from a balcony but you couldn’t actually get to the guttering and Lindsay quite rightly said that he couldn’t put anyone on the roof to do anything due to the three story drop and there not being any scaffolding then. He did say that he had some ideas though and to leave it with him – “sweet” I thought. It had been a positive and friendly conversation.

At this same time we were waiting for Lindsay to start the second phase of painting that we had arranged for him to do. In email communications that I had with Lindsay about a mix of things (all polite and friendly), I included a reminder to him about having a look to see what he could do about the blockage in the guttering (as a couple of weeks had gone by). I was shocked to get a rather abrupt email back from Lindsay saying that they didn’t accept any liability for it and saying that they weren’t plumbers and that it would be better solved by a plumber and he directed me to a specific plumbing company.

That was a 180 degree turn from him saying he had some ideas and to leave it with him, and it came totally out of the blue and I still don’t understand why the shift. I was aware that his sister had an illness at the time, and so I was being very sensitive and also cutting him some slack, but even if he was stressed about that, I couldn’t understand this running away from a problem they had caused.

I wrote back to him saying that it didn’t fit with the conversation we had had about it, as he had said he had some ideas and to leave it with him. I did say though that the blockage must be from the lichen as no leaves get into it and I asked whether he was now saying that he wasn’t even going to now try to rectify it. This was still a polite email.

The next day Lindsay’s team were due to come and start the second phase of the painting job. However only Lindsay arrived, and he told me that he wasn’t going to do the second phase of the painting at all (after we had waited a few months for him to start), and also he wasn’t going to do anything to fix the blockage. What! I was in shock. His logic was that he didn’t like being reminded of something and he thought that there was some tension between us now and it didn’t feel right to continue. He was right that there was some tension between us at that point, but the tone had always been polite and professional. I did thank him for coming in person to tell me rather than just emailing, but I was still in shock. That is the last time Lindsay and I communicated.

After reflecting on this afterwards, and re-reading the last couple of emails a few times. The only thing I could come up with is that Lindsay is super-sensitive about someone pointing out that something isn’t right or being reminded of something, and sadly he doesn’t then fix it but then gets defensive (even when you aren’t evening saying he has to fix it) and runs away from it. I wonder if the stress of his sister’s illness was a factor here, but even with that it doesn’t fully explain the lack of professionalism and taking responsibility for issues caused by your guys, or if his behaviour was due to some stress at the time, to come back later and apologise for the lack of professionalism.

It turns out that it was easy enough to fix the blockage by cutting the downpipe (that was actually more horizontal to take the water to a different bit of roof) and put the hose on the roof and wiggle a long stick with a hook attached to it around in the guttering where the downpipe was and sure enough a large pile of lichen washed through and out of the cut pipe onto the deck. I then re-joined the cut pipe and all was good.

We have recently had another painter up on the roof to paint a flashing that we had to replace on the roof’s ridge. The new painter made a comment about the low quality of Lindsay’s work and said that Lindsay must have used a very low-pressure sprayer to get the paint on given the grainy texture of the paint. I went up to have a look and sure enough it was different to the new painters work, but I wasn’t too worried about it (the new guy’s painting was more shiny and Lindsay’s work looked more matte, but I didn’t care too much about that). What I was shocked by though, was that as I was looking more closely at Lindsay’s work I could see lots of places where there was still some lichen on the roof that Lindsay had just painted over!!! The bulk of it had gone but not all of it, so now we have various patches of lichen still on the roof with a layer of paint over the top of it.

So with the value of hindsight I am not at all happy with Lindsay. I was very sad about the way it all ended and it didn’t need to be that way. The worst thing was that when it came to standing by his work he wouldn’t and he ran a mile rather than facing up to it, ironically when there was even an easy fix for that problem. I would not use him again."